Roasted Red Peppers and Hawk Rotisserie
by PeechTao
Summary: Clint could see only the gentle edges of the white-sided architecture sloping into the sea. The waves were cresting, falling to shower the rocks. It would have been beautiful if he wasn't already feeling the pain of Pepper's death ripping through the veneer of his humanity. More Clint whump! a death-defying battle, can Clint keep Pepper safe? will Tony forgive him when he fails?
1. Chapter 1

**Author Note:** _Hello again all honored fans! This is Peechtao returning to you from an ever-so-brief hiatus with this newest little gem for your reading pleasure. Please note, this book is complete and I intended to do all chapters up at once, however it has become more lengthy than anticipated so such nonsense will not be tolerated. I will therefore be giving you installments in parts. the following is part 1_

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing but my own concepts. they will be rented on request:)_

**True Description:** _Clint and Pepper have come down with the flu and intend to ride out their duel illness at the Stark Mansion, seeing as Tony has rented their typical rooms out of the Tower for a fundraiser and to show off his new toys to Reed Richards (fantastic four) whom Tony secretly believes is his arch enemy. While enjoying a night of vomiting and watching reruns of Avengers cartoons, Clint is suddenly thrown into a torrent of gunfire. Can he rescue Pepper and himself from sudden armed intruders? Will news of their plight reach the other Avengers in time? Will I ever stop abusing the Hawk? Stay tuned!_

* * *

**Roasted Red Peppers and Hawk Rotisserie**

_Author: Peechtao_

Part 1_  
_

Crap was one word for it, the flu was another. Either way, Clint Barton was feeling just about the same. He'd fought through being ill the last week the team had been stationed in Bosnia. He had started feeling bad then, but decided to ignore it. Like most of his ails it would eventually get better on its own without much intervention. Or so he assumed. The first inclination that he'd been diagnosed with something besides a remedial cold was the return flight to New York. Clint ears had been so out of balance he could do little more than lie on the floor of the helicarrier and refuse to get up.

He'd done a good job of hiding the fact that he was sick at all. It sure came as a surprise to the Captain when he was suddenly without a primary pilot a mere eighteen hours from home. Tony had elected to fly himself back in his Iron Man suit. He was probably half way across the Atlantic Ocean by now and well outside of range of being remotely helpful.

It wasn't Natasha's way to be surprised by much that Clint did. She knew him better than anyone and countless hours in the field together gave her adept insight into his physical being as much as her own. Being lovers was a simple icing on the proverbial cake. She could tell he was moving at a slower pace for the last few days. He'd avoided being around her much at night, his own way of keeping his cooties to himself. She knew he didn't feel well, but his sudden collapse shortly after takeoff was a surprise even to her.

Natasha's initial response was academic. First, she flipped the primary piloting to her own console to keep their continual free fall from splattering them into the ocean rushing horribly closer. When she had the jet leveled out, her next primary objective was keeping it that way. Steve Rogers, as the luck fell, was instantly recruited to copilot. At least he held a little experience in the area, even if it was during a war fought over half a century before.

Relatively safe from any immediate transfer into the realm of the dead, Natasha was at last able to turn her attention back toward Bruce Banner and Clint Barton. Bruce was keeping himself calmer then Rogers at least. The Captain had to have reached the level of excitability where the mind shuts down all rational thought and becomes a one way vacuum focused toward a singular goal. Like a mother bear whose cub was just chased up a tree by a rabid wolf. His hands were stuck to the copilot's controls while the rest of his body was turned around to see what the heck had happened to his ace archer. For everyone's benefit, Natasha redirected the course plotter to automatic.

"How's he doing Bruce?" Natasha asked first.

"OhmyGodI'mdying, leavemetodie." the grumbled, jumbled moan came from the stretched out heap of assassin on the floor. Clint's hot cheek was shoved against the cool floor tiles in a desperate attempt at relief.

"You're not dying, you have a cold. Probably the flu." Bruce told him. He looked forward to Steve and Natasha. "Don't worry, once I get him home, in a bed for the next two weeks he'll be right as rain again. I bet he got it from Pepper; she was just coming down with it when we left. Tony said she's starting to get over it now."

Steve's shoulders gave an obvious sign of relaxing. Now that they had transitioned from the obvious possibility of death to the less-than-lethal Clint has a cold he could allow the tension to remove from his shoulders.

"Clint . . ." he drew the name out slowly as he turned back around to look through the cockpit windshield. "I thought we had a talk about not sharing personal injuries with the team. I get that you don't want to appear weak, but the last thing we need is you collapsing at the pilot's seat. All right?"

"What the Hell is he saying to me?" Clint whispered from the floor.

Bruce patted his shoulder. "Just don't worry about that. Your head feeling better down there?"

Clint grumbled a "No," but remained where he was.

It was still a long flight to go, and whether Natasha would agree to let them land some place within the continental United States, but not particularly at the Stark Tower remained to be seen. If Clint had his say, he would have flown straight through. He'd feel better the minute he hit his box spring of a bed and the crumpled shirts that served him as a pillow and blanket while simultaneously banishing Tony's carefully chosen bed linens to the floor.

Somewhere along the endless flight, Clint must have fallen asleep. When he did awaken, his little dream of returning to bed was already a reality.

:(:):(:):

Dawning the day of his first real admittance of being ill was like awakening during the zombie apocalypse as a zombie instead of the lone survivor Clint had always imagined he'd be. His skull felt simultaneously weightless and full of sloshing fluid that moved drastically from one end of his face to the other as he moved. He knew exactly what land mine exploded in his face. He'd only ever had full-blown influenza once as a kid. Since then he'd only imagined himself sick every few years when a colleague crowded him on a mission with some gnarly cold. The flu vaccine was never really an option given his wonton dislike for all things involving hypodermics. He was healthy, male, and in the prime of life. Not exactly the top of the list for a flu victim.

How wrong he was.

His stomach had turned against him. The part of his gut involved in any form of food processing decided to fold itself into something akin to a soft pretzel creation. While effectively preventing him from enjoying all things edible, it also prohibited him from vomiting whatever contents may still be fermenting inside of him. The urge, however, remained like an ever present, untended ache in the pit of his stomach.

He rolled onto his side, taking shallow breaths to try and relieve a portion of his internal suffering. With the movement of his body came the inevitable movement of his cranium and all the dismay that induced. A flood of snot and bile made a similar journey to the back of his throat. The once coordinated (artful even) movements of the assassin trickled to a floundering mass of human flesh scrambling across the floor like a diseased rat escaping the light. He knew he couldn't reach his bathroom and settled, rather tragically, for his laundry hamper. With his head hung into whatever clothes he swore he would never be seeing or wearing again, his focus again concentrated on his breathing. With a belly full of mucus and a respiratory tract the cause of it, breathing at all became a worthy challenge.

With this scene of dignity, Clint's once peaceful loneliness was interrupted. Bruce hadn't always intended on being the team doctor. But as the one person with intimate knowledge of human (and now alien) anatomy and five years of practicing without a license in whatever back world hole he could throw himself in the designation was an understandable one. He liked having a niche again. He appreciated everyone's need for him. But it was scenes like this that made him wonder why on God's green earth he ever agreed to play doctor in the first place.

Clint looked like a two-year-old with scarlet fever. His skin was flushed and sweaty. He was on his hands and knees hurling into his own laundry hamper on top of all his clothes. His breathing was mere raspy rattles of an emphysema patient. His eyes were pouring tears down his cheeks out of reflex with his spasming middle.

"Yeah, I think you got it all right." Was all Bruce could say. He sighed and sat on the end of the bed by Clint's crouched legs, trying not to let the sound of his struggling comrade get his own physiology from commiserating.

"Ugh…." Clint moaned, leaning on the closest wall, not daring to remove his face from its hovering position. "I feel . . . like . . .crap."

"Yeah, I know." Bruce told him. "Pepper too. She's gotten over the vomiting part. Said it took her a few days. I say by next Monday food will look better to you again."

"UGH!" Clint said in protest. "No . . .don't food. Don't say that."

Bruce had to smile a little. "Sorry. Well, look at it this way, at least you're going to miss the fundraiser."

Feeling somewhat safe, Clint sat back on his bent knees. He turned his face toward Bruce. If the change in Bruce's posture was any indication of how Clint appeared, then Clint must have looked like the zombie he felt like. "Fundraiser?"

"Yeah, well, we did break New York. Twice. Pepper thought it would be good PR if we did a fundraiser for the victims."

Clint nodded his head. It was a mistake he paid dearly for.

While he watched as Clint returned to the soiled clothes with another donation of stomach contents, Bruce kept talking. "Tony's hoping Reed will be there. You know, the big wig, stretchy weirdo down on Tenth Street? All of the Fantastic Four were invited more for Tony's own ego than anything else. He got back early and moved a lot of the tech around. If you haven't noticed, we're not actually at the Tower right now. He needed it for the fundraiser so he moved you into the mansion for now. Most of the tech's back in the old vault. Keep it from the fancy pants, you know?"

Clint leaned against the wall again, panting with his head dropped against his chest.

"You think you're done?" Bruce asked.

Clint thought about it. "Yeah," he managed.

"Ok. You aren't getting these back. Hope you don't care." Bruce told him. He grabbed the sides of the clothes hamper and gingerly removed it from the room. Clint watched it leave with only half an interest. So what if he lost a few pairs of pants. There wasn't anything he couldn't replace easily enough. But now that he could actually look around he did realize the change in scenery. It was a good thing he didn't try to get to his attached bathroom, because he didn't have one. He doubted Tony would put him up in the master suite of his own home. Even the guest bedroom was thinking to highly of himself in Clint's opinion. Most likely this was some back room Tony _just_ realized existed. At least he had the decency to pull the mattress off the bed like Clint preferred. Sleeping for so many years in chairs, planes, under rocks, and in trees had spoiled him when it came to proper bedding. But just because the room was somewhat to his taste, didn't mean that Clint was going to stay in it, especially after Tony went through all the painstaking details of isolating the plague invading his home to the crappiest room in his mansion.

Clint grabbed the duvet cover off the bed. Apparently that had been his blanket and he intended to keep using it that way for now. He didn't bother with a pillow. He didn't have any. His first order of business would be finding the bathroom so as to clean the crap off of his face. If there was one thing Tony could be it was practical. That is to say, Tony had Pepper, Pepper designed every home he ever divined to have created, and Pepper was practical. That meant the restroom would be fairly close by.

"Hey, where you going?" Bruce asked, returning.

"Ba-room." Clint grumbled.

Bruce indicated it with a throw of his thumb. "You need a blanket for that?"

"Couch. TV." Clint explained. He dropped the blanket where he stood; expecting Bruce would get the hint. The guy was bright. Not just book smart and scientific, but actually intellectual. He'd pick up on the fact that Clint was not about to hide out in Tony's back room for the entire length of his illness. Before he even entered the restroom, Clint could see Bruce moving off down the hallway and away from the bedroom with Clint's blanket in tow.

:(:):(:):

"Seriously? Is this necessary? Is it not bad enough that poor Pepper has been sneezing her little flu spores all over my room and now I have this stuck to my couch?" Tony complained the minute he walked into the large common space.

Behind him Rogers and Natasha were both holding up the bar with a drink in their hands, looking amused. Bruce had been hunting around for the remote control until JARVIS was kind enough to point out the television was remote censored and voice activated.

On the couch, Clint was propped up in a swaddle of blankets and pillows. Two twisted sheets of Kleenex were shoved, one-a-piece in each of his nostrils. He gasped for breath through his hanging jaw. Anyone looking at him felt an instant sense of not only repulsion but an overwhelming empathy. Everyone except for Tony Stark.

"You look like a demented walrus, Clint, I hope you appreciate that sincerity from the bottom of my heart." Tony said.

"I hate you." Clint replied. Then purposefully turned and licked the arm of Tony's leather couch.

"Oh-My-God, you did not just do that!" Tony shrieked. He half rushed forward, then stopped himself to maintain his approximate thirty-foot distance. "You are a sick, sick, little man!"

Clint smirked, the stopped because he had to continue to breath. "Yeah, they call it the flu. You want some?"

"No doggie bag for you." Tony fired back, as if it were an actual threat.

Clint looked disheartened to play the intimidation up for him.

"You do know I am like one of the only immune-compromised people in here, right?"

Slowly, deliberately, Clint made a large hacking cough.

Tony fidgeted in place before turning and heading right for the door. "Nope, that's it. I'm leaving now before I come down with polio. Cap, Killer Girl, let's go."

Romanov emptied her drink and set the glass on the bar beside Steve's. She approached the couch first, rustling a hand through Clint's hair. It was a playful gesture at first, until her fingernails dug a trench in his forehead. "Oh, you owe me for babysitting alone." She told him quietly.

"Is it bad that I'm a little turned on by that?" Clint asked innocently.

"Coming Bruce?" Steve asked, grabbing his dinner jacket off the back of his chair.

Banner shrugged. "Yeah, I should. Clint and Pepper aren't going to get themselves into much trouble."

Steve grinned, nodding his head towards Hawkeye. "Hear that? No theatrics while we're gone."

"Not even a hit on the side?" Clint joked, sinking into the cushions a little further. "JARVIS, find that Avengers cartoon for me."

Bruce chuckled. He grabbed a pot out of the kitchen and dropped it at Clint's feet. He gave the archer a just-in-case look of sympathy and headed off with the other three.

"Take care of Pepper!" Tony called behind him. "You kids play nice. Daddy's going to be out late."

"Go make Mr. Fantastic eat your Arc Reactor." Clint called to him. He leaned his head against the back of the couch, allowing his eyes to slowly drift shut. "I'll hold down the fort." He was fast asleep before the words_ "Avengers Assemble!"_ ever left the mouth of cartoon Tony Stark.

:(:):(:):

Sleep lasted about as long as his first dose of liquid Nyquil. Clint awakened promptly four hours later with the dislodging of his snot-stopping Kleenex from his left nostril. Already his nose began to leak green/yellow mucus down his face. In a wave of shock and desperation to hide the infamy, he grabbed the box of tissues and hurriedly blew his nose. The sheer pounding pressure in his sinuses was enough to put any headache to shame. Then the sudden onslaught of a sore throat that made him swear he must have swallowed a sword in his sleep was no better a wakeup call.

"Don't forget to share." Someone said beside him.

Through half closed eyelids, Clint swung his head in a slow arc to see the person. Not surprisingly it was Pepper Potts. She seemed better than him, but not by much. It was like looking into the face of the ghost of Christmas Future. If this is what Clint had to look forward to in a full week of bed rest, he felt simply swallowing the whole bottle of Nyquil and waking up then was a better alternative.

"Wow." He said.

She gave him the same pained expression. "That bad? Really that bad? Tony said it wasn't that bad."

"Hate to break it," Clint told her, passing over the box of tissues. "But Tony's a bald-faced liar."

She gave a small smile. If she had the energy to be disturbed at her looks, it was long gone out of her. There was an L-shaped couch in the living room all arranged in front of the television JARVIS was kind enough to turn on again after Clint reawakened. How JARVIS was still streaming his favorite television show was a mystery. Clint doubted it was another Saturday morning marathon like he'd stumbled onto before. No doubt the AI was illegally downloading it.

While Clint had taken up his nest on the longer three-cushion sofa directly in front of the television, Pepper had filtered out of her room and arranged a nest of her own on the two-cushion love seat by Clint's feet. She seemed perfectly content to stay there for the remainder of her sickness, just as he had committed to.

"I'm sorry for getting you sick." She told him. She had already reached over and taken the box of tissues. Together they had a contest on who could remove the most snot from the endless supply their bodies were producing.

Clint waved it off. "It's all right. What option did you have? I don't think Natasha knows what sick is. Tony sucks on chlorophyll like it's not being made on trees, Thor doesn't get sick, Banner can't get sick, and Steve is Steve. He probably had it for like two seconds."

She smiled. "Sore throat yet?"

He swallowed painfully. "Like razors."

"Stomach?"

He held up a hand in warning. "Just, don't mention that."

"Nyquil's been helping me." She told him. She returned the tissue box to the table between them then curled her blankets under her chin and was asleep before Clint realized it.

Tiredly he took her advice and grabbed the bottle of medication. Taking a judicious dose, he rolled over again to get comfortable. Exactly five minutes later, he bypassed the puke pot left by a gracious Banner and went right for the bathroom. He was a gentleman (sometimes) first and a flu sufferer second. He didn't particularly wish to burden Pepper with the sounds of his retching. Not yet anyway. He'd save that little slice of joy when he lost the ability to stand at all.

If Clint's throat felt like a nail bed before, now it was more a kin to a wall of knives his flesh was continually being dragged across. Whatever medication he had added to his stomach contents was veritably expelled within a matter of moments. He flushed the greenish mixture away and shifted back to the sink to clean himself off. His nose was running down his face again.

He moaned a little in discontent. This was not how he imagined spending the first few weeks of winter. Flu season was on the down swing, or so reports went, and even at that his exposure to such pathogens was extremely limited. Tony was a germaphobe, and Natasha (as he pointed out to Pepper) had probably never understood the word illness. And here Clint was with the only person in the world who could give him a cold.

"This sucks." he said to himself through a raw throat. He spit the mouthwash he came across into the sink and vaguely searched for a toothbrush. He doubted Tony would have the forethought of bringing his own from the tower. The first time Clint was moved into the Stark monolith; Tony had forgotten everything, including every change of clothes Clint owned. He doubted for an improved situation this time. It was thoughtful that Tony brought along his laundry hamper, full of dirty clothes, which Clint would never see again. So maybe the situation had improved some.

After a fruitless search, he simply gave up. His body was too tired to stand. It probably wouldn't be long before he decided to make a return trip to the porcelain throne anyway. He flipped the light off and headed back to the living room.

If he had been feeling better, in full use of all his faculties, or anticipated that in Tony's impenetrable mansion that Pepper and he would suddenly be in danger Clint may have slowed his steps. He would have caught on that the telltale sounds of the living room television had been muted, while the screen itself was still casting bright blue and red hues into on the dark walls. He would have noticed that Pepper's gentle snoring of her clogged nose had stopped. And lengthy shadows with human shapes overlaid the colors the television cast. He would have noticed they were under attack. But he didn't.

Clint walked back into the room with his hand rubbing a hole into the side of his pounding forehead. His eyes were cast to the unfamiliar floor, assuring he wouldn't stumble over some random land mine he was ignorant of. The sudden chorus of guns cocking and Pepper screaming his name is what at last drew the distracted assassin too life. With the sudden flood of adrenaline invading his pores, Clint was on the defensive before he realized what was happening. He saw the first man to his immediate right. The guy was clad in black, held a semi-auto, and was already turning in the archer's direction. Clint grabbed the barrel of the gun, pulled it forward between his arm and his body then shoved the butt of the weapon into the guy's gut. He folded at the waist and Clint flipped the gun until its barrel was now facing away from him and toward the rest of the room full of men. They didn't seem shy about trying to kill him either. Clint grasped the first man by the arms and pulled him up while simultaneously allowing the guns in the room to use his back for target practice. Clint squeezed the trigger on his semi-auto, dropping three men in three shots. The remainder, at least five but perhaps more, began to duck for cover.

"Pepper!" Clint quipped. The woman had been surrounded, but was left unguarded long enough for Clint to orchestrate her escape from the line of fire. She bounded over the back of the couch without pause and headed right for him. Stooping behind him and the now deceased man in Clint's grasp, the three of them moved as one towards the back hall of the house. The first door they reached, Pepper opened, and they dove inside, sealing the door behind them.

Clint shoved the body at the foot of the door, then flicked the lock on. He sat to the side of the door jam with only his arm holding tight to the doorknob to prevent anyone's attempt at entry. He took a rapid glance at his surroundings. A bedroom.

"Pep, dresser, shove it over here."

Pepper grabbed the chest of drawers to Clint's immediate left and shoved until the furniture piece dropped into Clint's vacated post. It tumbled first onto its side with a heavy clunk before cascading its drawers open and falling flat on its now shambled face. Clint grabbed one end and pushed it closed to the door, wedging it over top of the dead body already acting as a draft dodger. It wasn't in place for more than a few seconds before the gunfire ripped through the unprotected wood. Clint grabbed Pepper by the arm and dragged her to the floor. Elbows over knees they crawled across the carpet until reaching the opposite side of a king size bed. Simultaneously, the two grabbed both ends of one side and lifted until the bed was standing perpendicular to the floor. The mattress skied off, a nightstand crashed, a lamp shattered and the gunfire never ceased.

The reprieve of dropping to his knees beside the bed was all Clint needed for his wave of Herculean adrenaline to fizzle out. His body shook like a crack addict on withdraw. He couldn't support himself on his hands, so he collapsed against the rug to catch his breath. His brain swirled around in a pounding mass of purulent discharge and fuzzy consciousness. A metallic gauntlet reached into his abdomen and grasped his intestines with a single unforgiving hand. Regardless of how he suffered, Pepper was pressed against him for dear life. She was terrified, and it was easy to tell even for someone suffering as he was. It took a moment for him to point out her clinging to his torso was making his health worse. That was something they simply could not afford.

"To—ny." Clint panted, trying to keep down whatever his body just dumped into his tubular organs. He swallowed, wincing against the soundless scream his throat made at the action. "Call him . . . Grab the phone."

Pepper reached over him, her body pressed against his and as far below the zinging bullets as possible. The cordless had come free of its holder in the struggle to upend the bed. She found it beside the other overturned end table and sunk back against Clint before attempting to dial.

"It's not," she punched numbers, listened, punched numbers again, dial 9-1-1, then gave Clint a disconsolate look. "No dial tone, nothing, not even emergency calls."

"Cell phone." He instructed. His eyes were shut. He was trying to ride out his stomach spasm without succumbing to it. He needed his second wave, and he needed it fast before that wood door gave up on offering the minimal protection it was already suffering for.

"Master bedroom, unless you have yours."

Clint shook his head a little, remembered that was a bad idea and stopped. He released a slow steady breath.

"Why today?" he whispered. "Why the Hell . . . do they want?"

Pepper shrugged. He could feel her shoulders lift and lowered against his chest as her head ducked into him again. That last bullet was close. Very close.

"We got to move." He said, opening his eyes. Trying to focus, he blinked a few times and rubbed them vigorously with his hands. "Bedroom, where?"

Pepper pushed away from him some but remained glued to the floor. "Down the hall, the opposite direction of us, Clint I don't know how we can get—"

"Outside?" Clint interrupted. "Can we get there from the windows?" He was forcing his body to submit now, just like the mission. This wasn't the time for his system to decide to rebel. He couldn't just call in sick and tell the men trying to kill them they had to come back later. If he didn't pull himself together here, right now, they were going to get slaughtered.

"I, the cliff—I don't—" Pepper was working with about as many firing brain cells as Clint. Contemplating leaping out of the room window to the obvious cliff face directly below them, then somehow scaling Tony's exterior walls to reach his bedroom seemed like an impossible task. Even saying it over in his head made it all the more a feat of sheer lunacy.

"Can't think." He told her. He grabbed her arm again and they headed for the window. Clint cautioned a glance back to the door. It had lasted longer than his mental estimate. Already pockmarks had given rise to holes large enough for a decent shot to take the pair out from behind. It was a good thing for them that the men currently storming the Stark Mansion weren't decent shots. They weren't even all right ones. Like mindless drones they bashed against the door by brute force and did all they could to move the stack of crap Clint had piled up. At least that would keep them busy for a while.

"Pepper out!" Clint shouted, noticing at once her hesitation. For one there was no way to get the window open, no way but the bold way.

Clint grabbed the first thing he could find off the floor that may have enough weight to shatter a window. First went the desk lamp. When that did little more than splinter the center, he moved up to the entire side table. The affect was more desirable, but by no means perfect.

One of the gunman had discovered the ability to aim through the door holes. The warning shot Clint was afforded created a .45 sized hole in the window he was attempting to dislodge.

Without being told, Pepper squeezed herself into a corner of the window sill. She was not out of danger, but she at least offered a less appealing target than the fully exposed back of Clint Barton, member of the Avengers.

_Semi-automatics,_ Clint had to remind himself. He abandoned his task for a moment to dodge out of the way of the bullets that followed their counterpart. They ripped through the glass, improving the shattered radius Clint had begun to chip away at. Give the sheer holding power of the tempered glass, Clint figured he'd have to wait until the clip of ammo ran clean before he could finish the job with a few more swings of the destroyed end table. He didn't expect the sudden rush of wind that tore through the bullet holes like claws. The window pane inflated as if pulled up on invisible strings of a puppeteer. Almost at the same time, the pane pulled outward and shattered completely.

The gunfire ceased to reload. The SHIELD agent knew he could move but for a moment he was frozen in alarm. With the shatter of the window, the cacophony of gunfire, his rapid threading pulse flooding through his own eardrums, he nearly missed the shriek of a woman meeting her untimely death. What was missed by sound was supported in spades by the sight. Pepper, curled into a ball against the window sill with her hands braced over her head, suddenly flailed out. Her body shifted off balance, turning in midair like a cat twisting to right itself in free fall. But there was nowhere for her to land. Nothing below but the expansive ocean crashing against the unforgiving rocks hundreds of feet down. Her face turned to his, the scream falling near deafly over him, as her body leaned into space and dropped out of sight.

It took a moment to filter through Clint's mind what exactly he had been a witness too. He lunged forward, his body pressed flat against the floor while his upper half hung over the edge himself. His mouth never formed words. Never spat her name into the whipping air. He just looked out into the endless ocean completely at a loss.

"_Take care of Pepper!"_

"_Go make Mr. F__antastic eat your Arc Reactor. I'll hold down the fort."_

"What have I done?" Clint whispered.

* * *

_well, there you go with part one. I get very stingy on my updates if i don't see reviews, so get them up!_

if you have time to click favorite, you have time to type- :) - and send it to me. a little smile goes a long way.

**shout outs to:** _my readers in Taiwan, Vietnam, and how about the UK!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author Note:** _So here's the next installment, hope you continue to enjoy! Thanks for the lovely review, i do enjoy them ever so much:)  
_

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing but my own concepts. they will be rented on request_

**True Description:** _Clint and Pepper have come down with the flu and intend to ride out their duel illness at the Stark Mansion, seeing as Tony has rented their typical rooms out of the Tower for a fundraiser and to show off his new toys to Reed Richards (fantastic four) whom Tony secretly believes is his arch enemy. While enjoying a night of vomiting and watching reruns of Avengers cartoons, Clint is suddenly thrown into a torrent of gunfire. Can he rescue Pepper and himself from sudden armed intruders? Will news of their plight reach the other Avengers in time? Will I ever stop abusing the Hawk? Stay tuned!_

* * *

**Roasted Red Peppers and Hawk Rotisserie**

_Author: Peechtao_

Part 2_  
_

"You know, Richards had an interesting perspective on higher level thermodynamic manipulation as it applies to human thermoregulatory pathways. It was really fascinating the strides he's taken since John Storm became a willing participant in the genome study." Bruce Banner was speaking more to himself than for the benefit of his present company. His drink sat unattended on the high top tablet while his hands were busier displaying the turns his mind was making internally. "And his study with the chromogenic morphology of chameleons and their human implications in the case of Susan . . . With advanced level research or even a little collaboration I bet I could find a link for the transference of specified DNA cultures to primate embryo—"

Tony reached out and placed both of his hands on Bruce's shoulders. It was a gesture never made by the billionaire. In fact, besides Pepper in their moments of unrestrained passion or Clint in his times of trouble Bruce had never seen Tony touch anyone willingly.

"Bruce, for the love of whatever big swirling thing exists in the sky and looks down on us like little prawny ants, please, stop pretending that Reed Richards is not satan. He is my arch enemy. If I could have an arch enemy, it is Richards. I know it and do you know why I know it?"

Bruce's sudden attention given to his friend fizzled out into a deflated sigh. "Oh?" he asked, already regretting it. "Why?"

"He wears a suit."

"Tony, you wore a suit first."

"Crazy space lab gama-radiation accident."

"I had a crazy earth-lab gama-radiation accident."

By the look Tony returned it was obvious that Bruce's experience, however comparable, did not equal the apparent evil he saw in the origin of Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four.

"Grey hair, only on the sides of his head. I mean, Rogaine. All good guys would use Rogaine."

Bruce rolled his eyes. Now he did grab his drink and finished it without reservation as to the quantity remaining in his glass. If this is what he had to expect the rest of the night, this one shot was not going to be enough. "Tony, its Revlon, not Rogaine."

"And his tower was bigger than mine until I decided to completely rebuild mine for my green energy project, and it was undamaged in both New York attacks. He lives like ten blocks east! I am sure some alien from somewhere could have dropped on his house too."

Bruce shook his head. He saw a bar maid go by and shook his glass at her with a look of desperation. She gave him a knowing sign and approached to refill it.

Tony pulled in a little closer, lowering his voice. "And I am pretty sure I have no idea why he accepted my invite. I bet he wanted to case the place."

"Anthony!"

Stark nearly jumped out of his skin as a hand clapped him on the back and a man pulled up alongside the two scientists. Unsurprisingly it was none other than Reed Richards himself. The guy was smiling, waving to the random other guests who called his attention if ever so briefly.

Tony for his part angled away from Reed and was not shy about grabbing a stool from beneath the tall table and placing it directly between them as a barrier. "Actually I go by Tony, now, to my friends. People I know social call me Mr. Stark. Evil scientists refer to me as-"

"Bruce, did you tell him about the thermoregulation break through?" Reed turned to Bruce and asked, missing Tony's uncomfortable stance.

"Yeah, I did mention it." Bruce said, smiling. For once he was enjoying himself at Tony's expense versus the other way around. He endured enough of Tony's constant badgering to enjoy himself this little reprieve. In fact, he was going to enjoy this moment to the fullest. "Oh, Reed, have you been given the tour of the Research and Development area?"

"Tour?" Tony quipped.

Reed's face lit up like a child awaking to find Santa Claus stuffing his stocking. "The R and D?"

"Yeah, it's just a few floors down."

Tony looked frantically between the two of them. "Tours, we don't do tours. Tours implies we are not a legitimate science establishment and a tour would degrade that aspect of mystery—"

"Private tour." Bruce cut Tony off. "I want your input on my latest project. We're working with some particle arrays from some old research from the Nevada desert. Did you ever hear of the Foster Theory?" Bruce grabbed his next drink from the barmaid and together he and Richards headed down the stairs to the R and D department, without Tony Stark to babysit.

:(:):(:):

Natasha watched the scene with mild amusement on her part. She would have enjoyed a full blown internal guffaw had her present company not been so wantonly asking for death on a silver spoon. He was called Johnny Storm to most normal humans, the Human Torch to the women he wanted to impress. Natasha knew exactly what category she fell under when he came over and stood in front of her, wearing that ridiculous black suit, and said:

"Hey, baby, can the Human Torch buy you a drink?"

Natasha did precisely what she did with most male suitors who were A: not a target and B: not remotely suave enough to compare to Clint in even one remote respect. She leaned forward, allowing her sumptuous bosom to get the kid's heart thumping like the wolf on a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Her ruby lips eased against his ear, allowing the sweet mixture of her honey breath and the Chanel Number 5 she donned for the evening to drive his senses over the edge. Then she reached out, grabbed a fist full of his nether regions and twisted them in such a way as to question their future structural integrity.

"Listen to me, Flame-Head," she whispered, twisting and ripping all in crescendo to the perfectly calm tone of her voice. "I have killed seventy-six people in the last thirty hours and I have plenty room in my bleeding ledger to write your name in."

Johnny gulped back all the screams of horror currently radiating from his abused manhood. "Uh, guess you're not a drinker, huh? Second base already?"

Natasha didn't take well to jokes from men she was trying very hard to repel at the get go. The Human Torch was going to learn that the hard way, even if he went home castrated.

:(:):(:):

"So, you goin' over there to bail him out, or are we just gonna sit here and let Johnny sing soprano the rest of his life?" The question came from Ben Grimm, occasionally called the Thing behind his back by the same poor soul currently the subject of his queery.

Steve Rogers was standing in a ring of Ben and Susan Storm, Johnny's sister. They had been the witnesses to his report of going after the smoking hot red-head sitting all lonely-like by Stark's stocked bar. Steve had attempted to warn the naïve kid what he was in for, but when hormones took over there was little to do but sit back and watch the fireworks.

To his right, Susan showed the most concern. He was her brother. Seeing him in pain, even though it was his own moronic doing, was difficult. But the Thing wasn't really asking her at all. He wanted Steve's opinion. As the handler-of-sorts for the ragtag group of Avengers, he would be the one to put the bulldog back on her leash. Besides, Ben Grimm doubted Susan could do much to get Natasha to stop if the master assassin's heart was really in it.

Steve pondered the question for perhaps longer than Susan would have liked. Finally, when it was obvious permanent damage was beginning to set in (and his own eyes could stand no more empathetic abuse) he called her off.

"Agent Romanov, you may want to give the guests a bit of a break." Steve said politely. He wasn't ordering her, that would get nothing done in his book and frankly he was not about to redirect her wrath to himself for any reason.

Natasha cocked her head a little to the side, as if wondering whether she was going to paint her room green or dark blue the next time she redecorated and the thought just now decided to spring into her mind. She released the bruised kid, allowing him the opportunity to dissolved into himself by way of recovery.

Ben turned back to his conversation, a smile crumbling the features of his rocky face. "Ha," he said, "Good to see the kid get the crap kicked out of him once in a while."

Steve wasn't sure what Ben meant but he nodded anyway. Susan moved away to pick her brother up.

"So, where's that other guy? The Viking guy with the crazy lightning. Was hopin' to get to see him here." Ben asked.

Rogers grinned. "Thor? Invited him, but he's been spending a lot of time here. His family's been desperate to get him back for a spell."

"How about Hulk? He making a show today?"

To that Steve let himself laugh a little. "Trust me, you don't want that to happen."

Ben agreed, but it was obvious a piece of him was disheartened by the loss in Avengers manpower. He was not the fundraiser kind of guy. He kept pulling at the suit he wore as if at any moment he'd be just as happy to tear it off. Strength he had, it would be just as easy as breathing. Steve knew how to work a crowed. Frankly it was instilled on him at an early age through the years of touring and selling war bonds to eager audiences along with the likes of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. But that didn't mean he enjoyed it.

"You wanna check out the gym?" Steve offered. It was one place in the Tower, beside his own bedroom, that felt close to home.

Ben looked a little brighter at that prospect. "Hey, think we could? I hate this monkey suit crap."

Steve quirked up a corner of his mouth. "It's Tony's day. Let him work the donors."

With that, they were out the door and heading down the Tower like a couple of bandits.

Tony was not blind to their escape either. With both Reed Richards and Ben Grimm now off on their own little adventures, Tony was left looking at the empty stool beside him. He sighed, thinking that normally the chair would be occupied by Clint Barton. The guy would have gone through his first glass of Blue Motorcycle by now. He be grinning, laughing, saying Tony's outbursts were bits of paranoi while simultaneously feeding right into them. Then he'd go drop a whole bottle of vodka into the punch bowl and really get the party started. Tony knew as well as everyone else this was all just a formality. Get the press, the big wigs, and the money grubbers of the city all in the one building the Paparazzi tried so hard to see. Everyone wanted to see what every day was like for Tony Stark and the crazy band of otherworldly creations that all called this place home. Natasha was wowing in her blood red dress and tacked up hair. Steve, while he was around, made everyone in the room feel like a personal friend. He was a face man all right. An all American boy. Bruce stuck to the intellectuals, describing his latest breakthroughs in human genomics. Those that followed along with what he explained were impressed; the people who couldn't understand him just liked the sound of his voice and scanned across his face endlessly for signs of green patches.

The absence of Thor was felt in part. Some had anticipated the first close up contact with the man all now knew was from another world far, far away. Tony had stood out on his balcony for almost an hour, calling some guy named Heimdall to relay the invite to Thor. Some part of him thought Hawkeye was pulling his leg about the whole watcher-of-the-universe thing, but he'd seemed so convinced himself about it that eventually Tony bit the insanity bullet and did it. Surely some hidden camera was tucked away by the pool and soon enough he'd see an entire repeat of the event replaying on Youtube. The ending was the same as he had anticipated, Thor was a no show.

Clint was missed more by the Hawkeye fan girls lined up outside the red carpet entrance. They were decked out in purple and black, some even wore home-made outfits straight from the Avengers cartoon (as if Clint ever went around in a half dress and purple cowl). The thought made Tony smirk. Well, maybe Clint wore that once when Tony had it secretly constructed and dressed Clint himself while the guy was passed out. Ah, good times.

Pepper was felt in spirit. It was painful how alone Tony felt when neither she nor Clint was around. His partner in crime was like a connection to reality. Pepper was his very soul. Missing them was like have his ARC reactor out of his chest. So, he amused himself the way he normally would in the past when people around him were just people and the word friend never lent itself to his vocabulary. He headed first for the bar, then made to disappear through the crowed and escape to his own private sanctuary. Natasha could handle the room. If not, then Rhodes could. Stark Enterprises was just laying the scene for the Defense Department and the city mayor's fundraising event. Stark didn't have to show up at all if he didn't want to and the event would go off just fine. But there was something that always disturbed him about leaving his things unprotected. Maybe Bruce was right. Maybe he was just paranoid.

:(:):(:):

Clint could see only the gentle edges of the white-sided architecture sloping into the sea. The waves were cresting in white-topped swellings that glided over the ocean floor to shower the rocks. It would have been beautiful, if he wasn't already feeling the pain of Pepper's death ripping through the veneer of his humanity.

Behind him the beatings against the door continued. Now the oak had split in half. Part of a man's torso was thrust through the hole with his gun cocked and loaded. Clint would be dead if the gun didn't jam at just the right moment. Fate seemed to smile enough on him to let his body suffer a minute longer through its grief.

"Clint?" a small voice whispered up to him.

Clint scanned the ledge, looking for fingers clinging into the open air with the rest of Pepper's body perilously dangling. But he saw nothing.

"Clint, are you there?" the voice persisted.

Slowly a small red head pushed out from directly beneath the window sill. A concavity not apparent from the angle of the structure formed just beneath. Pepper's entire body was shoved into it.

"Oh my God!" Clint exclaimed.

He held his celebration for a moment to scramble over the sill himself and into the small alcove. With her hand firmly gripped in his own, he led them around the outside of the home through the small construction wedge. He had to remember to thank the builder for the little savior the aesthetic appeal turned out to be. It would take the men after them a few moments to realize they had in fact not fallen to their death just as Clint had.

"Can we get to the room from here?" Clint asked her.

They'd circled to the front of the house. Down and to their immediate right was the large stone patio that jutted into the open air. The pool was at the farthest end, far enough to not lend itself compatible for jumping in. Clint had never been in the mansion long enough to orient himself with the layout. Pepper was his only reliance.

"It's below us." She told him.

They were perched on another sloping white edge. Their backs were pressed against a series of small windows. If they tried hard enough, it was possible to squeeze their bodies through them. Inside the blinds were drawn shut. At least no one would see them.

"And these?" Clint said, indicating the windows.

"Bathroom."

"Same hall we just came from?"

She nodded.

"Well that's not gonna work." He rested himself back against the glass. Pepper came beside him, trying to make herself comfortable in the growing cold wind whipping up from the ocean. it was already into winter and Clint hadn't had time to take into account how truly cold it was outside.

"Cold?" he asked her.

"Freezing." she replied candidly.

He hooked an arm around her torso and pulled her against him. They adjusted themselves like that on the sloped roof, trying to make the best of an imperfect situation. "Can't let you catch cold." Clint said sardonically. It hurt him to see anything wrong with Pepper. Not just because she was a woman, and that fact alone tended to grip a man's heart and make them be the protective ones. But this was Pepper Potts. Tony's girl. The one clean soul of the house without death stained through her hands. Clint thought of her like a sister in some ways. Like the sister he lost when his family was killed. If not for the freckles and red hair, they might look the same now. He couldn't let something happen to her. For one, it would break Tony's heart. It was no secret the feelings they shared and Clint wasn't sure what would happen to his best friend if Pepper ever came to harm for the sake of Iron Man or the Avengers. They were two hot lovers and Pepper was just about the kindest soul Clint had ever come in contact with. Almost like his mother.

He scoffed to himself, and Pepper looked at him questioningly.

"Nothing. I just compared you to not only my mother, but my sister too. Didn't realize you played so many roles in my head. Soon enough you're going to be Cap."

She smiled. "I never knew you had a sister."

He was surprised at that. "Tony didn't tell you? I know he gave his word never to tell anyone, but you're you. He always tells you my deep dark secrets."

"Got me wrong." She said. Her arms tightened a little as a shiver went up and down her spine. "He never tells me anything juicy about you. I wish he would, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't. He calls it the "Bro-Code" that you both have. He did say you promised to never take a bullet for him and that always confused me a little."

"Bro-Code," Clint repeated. "Yeah, well he didn't tell you why I said that. And it's because he would be in armor and I would look like an idiot if I stepped in front of his bullet proof tech and got myself shot on his behalf. You know, he never tells me anything juicy about you either."

"Gal-Code." Pepper said."He must think pretty big of me then. usually he's busting to tell his friends about the girls he's been with."

Clint looked down at her red hair. He resisted the urge to pretend it was Natasha's. "Pep, he did tell me one thing. That he thinks the world of you. Don't compare yourself with playboy bunnies. It's like trying to compare the queen of England to Bo Derek in that crappy braided hair movie."

Pepper snickered and that was all he needed to be assured her mind had left its poisonous thoughts. Pepper was never just some girl. She wasn't a notch in Tony's bedpost that was going to one day be replaced. If she died, Tony would never be the same again. Clint fancied for a second what Tony would be like if he lost the Hawk. It wasn't a staggering conclusion to know the pain wouldn't be the same. Tony would move on, find new friends . . . maybe. Well, at least he would have Banner.

His head had returned to its double-vision temp. There wasn't much longer he could go on convincing himself there was nothing the matter with him. He could barely swallow. He tried to tell himself that talking so much wasn't helping him any but he was always a chatterbox when life threw lemons at him. His nose rebelled constantly, dribbling snot down his face at every unbidden moment. He was half tempted to take off his shirt and blow his nose on it.

Pepper seemed to notice his internal struggle and from someplace beside her, she handed over a box. There was no mistaking the fluffy white objects poking out of the cardboard.

Flabergasted was the word that best described his emotion at their production.

He was unable to help the accusatory tone his voice adopted when he spoke to her. "Are you telling me that you ran from those gunmen, got shot at, barricaded a door, fell out of a window, and crawled around on the wrong side of the house with those the entire time?"

Pepper smacked his arm with them. "I am sick, ok?! I am not exactly thinking straight, _Agent_ Barton. Why didn't you like . . . I don't know, keep that guy's gun?"

She never referred to him as Agent anymore unless she was very, very mad at him. He took it as a sign to back down. Clint pulled out a few tissues and was not shy about using them. The thought about the gun never came to him until she pointed it out.

"Wow, I am sick." He muttered in disbelief at himself. "I'm not even thinking straight anymore. How do we know they haven't gotten to your room yet? Took the phone? And what's going on with JARVIS? Shouldn't his defense systems have taken over and at least warned us or something?"

Pepper gave him a funny look, as if the concept was foreign to her as well. She crawled up beside him. They sat there, braced against the outside bathroom windows and looking into the distant horizon. The box of tissues separated their legs. Both grabbed liberal handfuls as necessary, tossing them outward to roll down the roof and out of sight.

"If they shut him down," Pepper said after a time of sitting, blowing her nose, throwing a tissue, and grabbing another. "Then his system at the Tower will know. It'll alert Tony that something happened."

"Bet he'd love an excuse to leave and check it out." Clint added.

To his right was a small strut supporting the arc of white metal that curled over their heads like a sun shade. He cozied up beside it, letting his face rest on the coolness of the shadow. His second adrenaline ride was officially fizzling out. The weakness of his body settled into his bones. He wasn't sure he could get up and be the action hero one more time.

"Think he'll come?" Pepper asked, her head resting on his shoulder. "Can we just stay here and wait for him to come?"

He'd be a liar if he said it wasn't an appealing prospect. He was no good as a fighter like this. His first priority was to secure the victims. Pepper was secure right where they were without going too over-the-top. Why leave was a good question to ask.

Before he could formulate an answer or convince his body that moving may be more beneficial than not, the decision of whether to stay or go was made for them. He knew they had a limited time to go undiscovered. Apparently one of the men, Clint decided to call him Scabby, rounded the corner they just came across. Scabby didn't have his rifle handy. He'd slung it over his back for the hands-and-knees crawl over the ledge. He did have a hand gun within easy reach and was just beginning to draw it when Clint rushed him. The metal ledge was smooth enough to keep the thought of not falling to their deaths in the back of both their minds. Of course, since Scabby had only one hand not holding him up, Clint was awarded the advantage.

He had a simple plan. One his mind would be unable to protest too heavily. He simply approached, turned onto his back and with both legs slammed old Scabs in the chest. The guy was falling out of sight within the blink of an eye. The four men following behind him were a different matter.

Clint pulled himself back and out of the line of fire. It was obvious that he and Pepper had to move, and quickly, if they intended to live at all. At least Pepper didn't have to be told twice. She was sliding toward the opposite end of the alcove before Clint could catch up. Neither trusted their footing enough to stand. When they reached Tony's estimated bedroom balcony, Clint's first inclination was to lower Pepper down first then follow behind. The plan was made very difficult by sharp drop off that ended before the balcony began. And the swiftly approaching men with guns were nothing to ignore either.

"What are we—"

"Give me your hands." Clint cut her off. "Now stay still, don't do anything, just hang there!"

"HANG?!"

Clint already had her wrists in his grasp and with a single fluid motion launched Pepper into the open air. He flattened himself against the overhang and gave her a count of two before letting her go with a swing. The "oof" she uttered was all he needed to know she made it safely onto the landing. Clint wasn't sure how he was going to get down without killing himself, but that would come with a little patience and panic. The gunmen were at his backs, pulling around their rifles.

He had to move. He grabbed the box of tissues left behind by Pepper and hurled them towards the group of men. One shot it out of surprise, sparing Clint's back a bullet he really didn't need at the moment. The effect was desired, if not unexpected. The box virtually exploded, covering them in the white double-soft linen of every flu-griever's dream. By the time they were ready to shoot again, Hawkeye was gone.

Entering the landing safely by no means meant they were out of harm's way. In fact, they ended up rather right in the middle of it. Clint nearly missed the railing with his flailing leap from the roof and it was only by the grace of a hanging plant (clearly erected by Pepper) and a satellite dish (erected by Tony) that he survived the jump at all. Of course, survival came with its own damaging consequences. One gunman was apparently on the deck already. When Pepper literally fell into his lap he hadn't been able to decide whether to shoot her or just grab her. What resulted was a mixture of the both. He had her by the hair in one hand while the other swung around his pistol. He wasn't trying to shoot her with it, just moved it back and forth as if unsure what he should do. Before he could call for assistance by some brighter-minded being Clint dropped like a into his line of view.

When bodies begin to arbitrarily fall from the sky into the lap of an apparent simpleton, it can cause a step reaction of utter confusion. First, he released Pepper, and then tried to grab her again while single-handedly trying to flick off the safety of his weapon. Clint mounted the railing back onto solid land before his lifeline plant/satellite dish combo broke away on him. Seeing Clint's proximity, the gunman gave up on Pepper and flicked the safety off of his gun at last.

Pepper ran to the closest object she could find, oddly enough a cutting board, and returned with it to beat her captor senseless.

Clint grabbed the top of the sidearm and slid it forward, dismantling the barrel with a single pull.

Pepper swung the cutting board at his head, but came up short and chopped his neck instead.

Clint kicked out his legs.

Pepper wailed again, this time hitting his head.

Clint kicked into his ribs.

Pepper dropped the board onto his face and staggered off toward the doors inside.

Clint slowly bent down to retrieve the man's gun. Not willing to make the same mistake twice. With it, the barrel, and a few spare clips in hand he followed Pepper into the bedroom.

"Does this room have manual security?" he asked quietly. It was possible there were still others within.

"Panic button in the closet." She replied, heading over to one end of the room. Clint followed. He reassembled the gun and chambered a round before flipping the lock on the outside door. If Tony's bedroom was indeed his panic room double he had no doubt the glass would be bullet proof. He pulled the shades for privacy. Pepper opened the closet, looking gingerly inside in case some insidious man was routing through her clothes. She was relieved to find no one within, but the distraction prevented her noticing the man who walked right into the open room door from the hall outside. Unlike many of the others thus far, his gun was not only loaded and ready, it was already aimed at her. Hesitation was not going to save her again.

But Clint saw him only a few seconds before Pepper. The archer fired his weapon, the man dropped without a chance to squeeze the trigger.

"Pepper quick!" Clint shouted. He bounded across the room, dragging the man out of the way of the door so he could push it shut. Another man launched himself at the door before Clint could move the body. They grappled for a moment until Pepper rushed to Clint with a stiletto in her hand. After seeing what that five-inch heel did to the man's head, Clint had a little more healthy respect for women's shoes everywhere.

He rolled the now unconscious body out the door, followed by his dead friend. Then the door shut. Clint flipped the lock as he leaned against the frame.

If he had any inkling of being spent of energy before, then now he was completely useless. Even the gun between his fingers felt as heavy as Thor's hammer. Surprises continued to pop up every time they had a moment of rest and that was perhaps the most life-draining part of this entire experience. He doubted it had been any more then fifteen minutes since the start of the ruckus. To think, only that short time ago he was happily oblivious to this future torment.

"Panic button?" Clint asked hopefully. Outside on the balcony he could hear men's voices intermingling with the fading sound of a scream. Obviously someone didn't make the complicated jump.

"Looking." Pepper announced.

The men outside began to shoot the glass after being unsuccessful with trying the door handle. To Clint's contentment it did prove to be bullet proof.

"Shouldn't these things be, oh I don't know, accessible in an emergency?" Clint complained. He was looking across the room at the bed, the bed that looked suddenly so comfortable. It wouldn't hurt if he just crawled right over and passed out for a few minutes.

"Yeah, well that was before Tony asked me to move in." She replied, still buried inside.

Clint spied another doorway to the left of both the closet and him. For now it was closed, but not knowing what lay beyond it was prudent to investigate. Lazily he pushed off the door jam and headed over. He expected someone to be on the other side. In fact, he anticipated seeing at least thirty-nine armed men waiting for him to draw the door open enough for them to gun him down. That was just his luck today.

"Pepper? He whispered. "What's this other door lead to?"

"What?" She was stuffed into a pile of shoes and dresses thrown over the floor in her search along the wall.

"This door? Where does it go?" Clint repeated, he scanned the bedroom, looking for a chair he may be able to use to prop against it should the need arise. The bed, as always, was also an option.

"I just can't find where . . ." Pepper trailed her voice, nearly disappearing behind a wall of hanging clothes.

Clint stepped inside; intending on grabbing her if that's what it took to get her full attention. But he never got the chance. A gun, not his own, went off at close proximity. Clint spun sideways, hitting the low shoe rack on the left of the closet door as he lost balance. Pepper screamed. She went for Clint's gun, but she wasn't fast enough to beat the archer. He recovered, pulled the gun level and fired a shot that ricocheted from the bullet proof glass directly into the reflection of the gunman hiding behind the closet's open door. The body hit the floor with an all-too-familiar thud.

Unsure whether he could stand or not, he handed her the weapon. "Point, shoot." He said through clenched teeth. "Make sure . . . he's dead."

The unease of being given their only weapon was evident on her face. She did well to try and mask it, even as she shuffled to her feet and gently moved out of the doorway. Clint didn't hear another shot. He figured he wouldn't. His moniker wasn't a simple friendly term passed around at SHIELD for the heck of it.

"Careful." He told her, easing himself down the shoe rack until he was sitting on the floor. The pain of his pounding head was being equally matched by a radiating pain from his arm. It didn't feel too bad. He hadn't broken anything at least, but the reality of another inconvenience hit him worse than the gunshot wound.

"Pepper?" he called. He took another painful gulp of the spit and mucus wallowing in the back of his throat and was nearly brought to tears as it carved its way down to the lead weight of his stomach.

"The bathroom." She announced from someplace around a corner. "Clint, it was the bathroom. He came from there. No one is there anymore."

Clint may have allowed himself to relax before he got shot, but now he didn't have the luxury. Every time it seemed that life gave them a moment of reprieve, it stole it away just as swiftly. His head fell to one side, intending to take in the damage to his arm, but his eyes decided to point out a rather more important object tucked behind the wall of shoes. It was large, flat, and red. The word PANIC was written in bold white letters right over the top. Clint rolled his eyes, pulled himself forward and reached up just enough to slap the button with his fingertips. Ok, so stilettos may have a practical purpose, but he was officially against them again.

Pepper reappeared in front of him. It was difficult to determine whether her sadness mounted from his injury or her blood-flecked shoes. The room outside had become dimmer. At least the panic button was still in working order. The bullet proof glass was now coated in some sort of metal, most likely what Tony designed his Iron man suit out of. Likewise the room door became self-barricaded. For now, and only for now, they were safe.

"Oh, Clint." She murmured.

"That bad? Tony said it wasn't that bad." He quoted.

She gave him a sad smile. "Are you ok?" she asked sincerely.

"I don't know. Honest, I don't know. I can hardly think. I can't keep going like this." He told her. Then a hard, jabbing feeling pressed into his gut. "Ugh, did you say that was a bathroom?"

"Yes, why?"

Clint pushed himself up with one hand. His other arm began to protest being moved at all but at this point it was no longer an option. "Pep, if you want to save the rest of your shoes from me, you better help me to the . . . the . . ." he closed his eyes, fighting the gagging urge that inverted the muscles of his neck.

Pepper hopped to the rescue. She grabbed his good arm and nearly lifted him completely off his feet to deposit him by the toilet. Clint had the flickering thought that should in the future he require her to lift a semi-truck off of him, he should again threaten her collection of Louis Batons.

Since he was no female with hair to pull back and the sound of his retching was enough to make her reciprocate, Pepper walked out of the bathroom and pulled the door shut behind herself.

Clint was thankful for the motion. He preferred to do his vomiting and bleeding in private.

:(:):(:):

Tony tapped the readout on his computer screen. He would have figured the warning was simply a glitch, a ghost in his system showing up now and again that he had yet to debug appropriately. How else could he explain a total JARVIS failure at his own mansion? He visibly shook his head at the monitor in unbelief and took a sip of his protein drink.

"Hey, JARVIS, you coming down with the flu like Pep and Hawk-boy?" he joked to the AI.

"_If you are referring to the malfunction of my mainframe at the Stark Mansion, then no sir, I believe not." _The AI responded.

"Hmm." Stark replied. He set his glass down on the tabletop and swiped a hand from his computer tablet into the open airspace in front of him. The various program files of JARVIS's mainframe arranged themselves in the air before him. It seemed that every single link between Stark Tower's main hub branch and that of his home network had been severed by an errant program interference. It looked remarkably similar to a virus, or a maintenance malfunction. Even a server crash at the house would explain the anomaly. The possibilities he sat and pondered to himself as he looked carefully over the files.

"Any security breach?" he asked.

"_Not according to my records, but they are from before the link was severed, Mr. Stark."_

"Hmm, hmm." Stark mumbled to himself.

The door to Tony's private floor opened and closed behind a singular figure. He turned slightly, hoping in a way that Reed Richards was sneaking in so Tony would have a reason to shoot him. No such luck. Instead it was Natasha Romanov.

"There you are. Wondered what hole you snuck off to. With Cap and the orange golem downstairs yucking it up for the camera and Banner and Richards discussing their future dinner dates, the parties gone a little dry for me." She approached the visual screen and glanced over the files. "Something up?"

Tony shrugged. "JARVIS's server looks like it crashed at the house."

Natasha smiled. "Maybe JARVIS got tired of watching that stupid cartoon on repeat and committed suicide."

Tony snorted. "You're just jealous because you're hardly in it."

Romanov ignored the comment. In the mood she was in, the benefit was solely for Stark.

"Think something's up?" she asked.

He sighed, his eyes scanning over the data as if willing the lines of code to speak to him. "I don't know. Probably not."

"I'm willing to leave right now and check." Natasha offered rather quickly.

Tony turned to her. "Tired of Flame-head already?"

The look in her eyes was all he needed to know precisely what she thought of Johnny Storm's endless advances.

"It's a good excuse to get out of here." Tony said.

"Done." She turned on heel and stomped toward the elevator.

:(:):(:):

Clint flopped down across the bed, not caring how his body angled over the pristine sheets and blankets. He hardly thought about the fact he was still bleeding, rather less profusely, over said bed spread as well. He needed sleep, in all its wonderful glory. Sleep, a forty day fast from all things that may be food related, and a total throat replacement if such a thing was possible. Actually, he would beg Banner the minute he saw him to invent such a procedure just for Clint's own gain.

Pepper was sitting on the end of the bed beside his dangling legs. There was a great resemblance between her current state and a drugged sloth. If she cared that his internal blood-pumping mechanisms were working to ruin another part of the home she and Tony shared, then it didn't show.

"Are we done now?" She asked, easing herself back against the bed. "Can we just stop running and falling off of buildings?"

Clint snorted, or would have if his unforgiving stopped up sinus cavity would have allowed it. What resulted was a sound similar to a cat choking on the carcass of a mouse. "Hey, you have been thrown off of three buildings now in my care." He replied, pointing out the less-then-glamorous escape he once attempted from the Stark Tower in which he and Pepper accidentally decided to fall off the building entirely.

"You're bad for me." She replied, reaching up for a pillow which she dragged to her face.

"I didn't start falling off building till you showed up." He replied. He sneezed, producing a wail of pain from more body systems then just one. Pepper gave him a sympathetic look. "And I didn't get sick till I met you too." Clint complained. "I would kill for an ice bag over my face right now. Honestly, pick any bumbling idiot outside and I will shoot them right now."

"Don't do that." Pepper told him, slipping off the bed.

He groaned, pressing his throbbing face into the mattress. "I can even take meds. I just want to pass out. Can I just pass out?"

Pepper returned from somewhere next to the flat screen television and sat down beside his head. "You know, you talk a lot for a sick guy."

"Can't help it." Clint replied.

'Well, here, put this on your face."

He moved a little, summoning a familiar fire in his gunshot arm. To his sweet relief, Pepper was offering him a sock full of ice cubes. The thing could have come from the bottom of the Hulk's sweaty gym bag and Clint would have still thought of the gift with the same appreciation. With hands bordering on desperation he took the offering and slapped it against his face. This time when he groaned, there was a mixture of relief playing against the vocal cords of agony.

"Mini fridge." She told him. "You know Tony."

Clint muttered something, but it was unintelligible.

With his body turned now to lay face up, Pepper was given a full display of the carnage done to his arm. It wasn't as terrible as she had been exposed to in the past. As one of the more mortal members of Team Avenger, Clint had a tendency to get the crap kicked out of him when a bad guy was lucky enough to get close to him. That's why he enjoyed keeping his distance between the men he hunted and himself. He preferred to save the close contact sports to Tony or Thor, even the Captain. Not that he was incapable of handling himself, he just had a tendency to be more fragile than a super soldier or man incased in an iron clad suit of armor.

She tsk'd at the sight and what it was doing to her bed clothes. _Well, I was meaning to replace those,_ she said to herself. But it wasn't doing either of them any good to let him continue to bleed. She picked up one of Tony's old undershirts from the corner of the room he had, as a man, designated as the laundry pile. She didn't know much of what to do besides simply tying the shirt in a knot. Hopefully it helped.

"Taking care of me now?" Clint mumbled. It wasn't hard to perceive he was used up.

"You do a good enough job for me." She replied.

"Can't have Tony after me too." He said.

At that she smiled. "Not even a stubbed toe here, I think you did your job."

During a majority of their exchange, Clint and Pepper had learned to shut out the dying sounds of the black-clad men trying to blast their way through more defensive features then Fort Knox. Over time the gunfire, minor explosions, shouts, and random poundings had dulled to nothing. Either they had given up trying to kill them, or they found whatever it was they were initially after and left.

Option three stated they were lighting the place on fire in order to enjoy a side dish of roasted red Peppers and Hawk rotisserie. Clint had to admit if he was the one heading this cumbersome, uneducated, dead-headed band then he might just go for option three but given the circumstances and the severe lac of skill displayed on all fronts, it was most likely they would be spared that particular mode of death.

Option four involved planting a few mines and simply blowing the struts that supported the home on the cliff face apart. Clint and Pepper would not only be trapped, but they would hit the water and either drown or suffocate in a sickeningly short amount of time. Again, if Clint were in charge, this might be even more appealing than option three.

Option five . . .

He could go on and on listing the various ways in which Pepper and he were to meet their inevitable demise. None of which options included the possibility of rescue. JARVIS was down. The security systems went the way the AI had. The phone lines were cut off. The cell phone Pepper had kept in the bedroom was nowhere in sight and the dead man lying behind the closet door had nothing of use beside a bottle of aspirin in his left pocket and a spare Beretta that they felt little need to part him with. The aspirin was downed with the help of tap water drank through the beer bottle Pepper was kind enough to open and empty for him. Clint counted the minutes until his stomach sensed the foreign contaminate and attacked like a viscous dog.

No. Rescue was not at all on his mind. So it was a tender surprise when the door flipped open from the outside and the sheets of impenetrable metal peeled away to leave the pair vulnerable once more. Pepper took the gun in her hand, though Clint doubted he would ever have the pleasure of seeing her use it. He was hardly any better a shot the Ms. Potts with the rebellious way his head was affecting him. But neither had occasion to fear. The minute the metal peeled back like the door of a parking garage, Clint knew who was behind it. The blood red dress gave it away.

Shocked, overwhelmed, exploding in ecstasy, Pepper instantly leaped to her feet and rushed Natasha. She had all intentions of throwing her arms around their savior had she not been predisposed to a little trouble along the way. A running target made a much more appealing shot then a stationary one to a man who was already half way into the realm of the dead.

The man Clint downed, the one lying by the closest suddenly sprang with life once more. As a last defying act, the pistol raised, the sight followed the bounding form of Pepper, and this time it was Clint who screamed.

* * *

aaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd... there she goes again:) I know i know, but what can i do? i just love it!

stay tuned for the third (and probably final part) soon.

today's shout-outs go to: my many many USA readers! That lonely person hanging out in Chile, and why not through my Belarus readers in the mix. HELLO out there!


	3. Chapter 3

**Author Note:** _FINAL CHAPTER!  
_

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing but my own concepts. they will be rented on request_

**True Description:** _Clint and Pepper have come down with the flu and intend to ride out their duel illness at the Stark Mansion, seeing as Tony has rented their typical rooms out of the Tower for a fundraiser and to show off his new toys to Reed Richards (fantastic four) whom Tony secretly believes is his arch enemy. While enjoying a night of vomiting and watching reruns of Avengers cartoons, Clint is suddenly thrown into a torrent of gunfire. Can he rescue Pepper and himself from sudden armed intruders? Will news of their plight reach the other Avengers in time? Will I ever stop abusing the Hawk? Stay tuned!_

* * *

**Roasted Red Peppers and Hawk Rotisserie**

_Author: Peechtao_

Part 3

What resulted over the last hour was a blur of movement and commotion. He had stopped allowing his mind to think. Thinking hurt. Moving hurt. Breathing, when he decided to partake, hurt. He stood outside the emergency entrance of St. Katherine's hospital. For an E.R. the place was relatively quiet. Only the occasional walking wounded passed him by with little more interest in him then their own bruised knees or busted arms. Clint found a favorable edge made by the protruding doorway and the connecting wall within which to stuff his aching body. He didn't dare enter the clinic. Even with Pepper possibly on her death bed he just could not bring himself to go inside. The fear of never walking out was too great for him. His other fear of being poked with anything those docs had only escalated his alarm. No, he was perfectly content to wait outside.

Under his instruction, Natasha rode in the ambulance with Pepper. Clint had waited to barter a ride from the closest black-and-white that showed up at the house with its lights blaring. Thankfully the officer was merciful enough to omit using his siren to get them to the hospital in a timely manner. Clint was hardly holding himself together riding in the car. The added imposition of a siren blaring through his brain was just too much to ask.

When he first arrived, Natasha met him outside. She knew as well as he did there wasn't much chance he'd cross the threshold even for an update. There wasn't much to say. Pepper was in getting a CT scan to check the damage. The doctors wouldn't have any news until after the report hit their hands. She'd called Bruce, not Tony. It was her opinion that Bruce's gentle manner would be able to break the news to Tony better than a phone call from Pepper could. She then asked Clint if he was ok. He didn't reply and he didn't mention the bullet hole in his arm. When Tony showed up it would make no difference that Clint was injured or not. Stark trusted Clint to protect Pepper and Clint failed. Natasha didn't stay long. She wanted to be on the front lines of any news.

The chilly day transitioned into a colder night. Clint at least had the forethought to grab a coat out of Tony's closet before leaving the house. Now, tucked into his corner with the dark of night tugged over the sky Clint could only wait with his borrowed coat pulled tightly over his chest to dispel the chills wracking his exhausted body. Never in his life had he experienced such a mental/physical drain. He wanted so desperately to sleep, but with the worry over Pepper and the advent of Tony's soon arrival Clint wouldn't allow his own selfish need to overpower him. But was it selfish to give in to his body now? All he wanted this entire time was to sleep, to pass out and not arise from the cave of pillows and blankets he would burry himself in. Did that make him a wicked person? Were the needs of his body so unreasonable?

These errant thoughts kept sleep far from him. His mind was too busy replaying the scenes and events that led up to the present. He was consumed in the various things he overlooked. The failures sickness masked. If only he had done this. If only he had remembered to do that. Why had he not thought of this over doing that? Why had his body rebelled so? Why weren't even his thoughts his own?

When his personal frustration reached a climactic tempo, he felt a set of eyes fall to him. Funny, he hadn't realized he'd closed his own until just then. The first sight he beheld was the angular body of Tony's Fiskar Karma skidding to a halt only a few feet from where Clint stood. The archer made it a point not to mention Tony's atrocious parking job landed half the front end over a curb. The look of murder shrouding Stark's face was evidence enough that he was in no joking mood.

Clint pushed out from his corner, trying to walk forward on legs that no longer had the desire to obey. "Tony—" his voice rasped, so quiet and painful it surprised even him.

Tony lunged at him, shoving Clint right back into the corner he came from and producing a satisfying yelp from the stunned Hawkeye. It was only feed for Tony's rage. He wanted Clint to feel like Hell. The guy deserved it. Deserved all the torment Tony had been mentally beating him with during the entire drive from Stark Tower.

"STARK!" Steve exclaimed, only just getting out of the car behind them. Banner nearly kicked his own door open to get out and split the two up.

Steve wouldn't be fast enough to save Clint from another thrust forward and back into the wall. This scream was louder, more satiating then the last.

"_I **trusted** you_!" Stark shouted. His hands dug into Clint's shoulders. "The one thing I asked you, just one thing and you couldn't do it!"

"Tony, get off him!" Steve interjected. He placed his arm between them. It would be nothing for the super soldier to separate them but he didn't want to break either man in half during the process. It would be easier for everyone if Tony simply back down at the threat.

Clint mouthed the words _I'm sorry,_ but his voice wouldn't follow. Barton cursed his own body. All the words he wanted to say, the explanation he'd gone through over and over again was nothing if he couldn't speak.

Tony's grip became more intense. Clint felt the bullet wound dance a rhythm of intense agony from his elbow to his chest. He held back the gasp that desperately wanted to escape. The white pallor his skin adopted from the abuse was hidden beneath the veneer of his feverish face.

"Tony—" Clint forced out, desperate to make his friend stop. How could Stark know the pain he was inflicting? But the look in Tony's eyes when their faces met was enough to tell Clint that even if his best friend knew what he was doing, he wouldn't care. In fact, it was likely to make him even more pleased.

"Come on, let him go, he couldn't have known—" Banner tried.

"Just ease off him." Steve instructed softly.

The man was still mad as Hell. It would take everything Steve and the Hulk had to drag him off Clint if Tony had his say in the matter. But right as the tension boiled over, Natasha came rushing out through the E.R. doors.

"You're here, Pepper's just getting out—"

Tony released his hold on Clint, who stayed against the wall while trying to remember how to breathe.

"Where is she?" Tony demanded.

Natasha motioned for them to follow. In a moment, Clint was alone again, sinking to his knees as the sky opened up in a cascade of sleet and snow.

:(:):(:):

Tony turned the corner of the hospital, rushing into the E.R. ahead of Natasha even though he had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do when he got to Pepper. He just wanted to run, jump out of his skin, and become Iron Man all at once. He was desperate, confused, frightened, angry, flooding with so many emotions he couldn't explain or comprehend.

Natasha had it right not to call him directly from the back of the ambulance. Breaking the news to Bruce as gently as she could and expecting his experience giving bad news to grieving families allowed him an edge in speaking to Stark face-to-face. It did little to lessen the pain, but it did keep Banner and Steve from getting left behind when Stark decided to tear off out of the Tower.

Tony was far ahead of the others now, throwing back drapes and curtains in the E.R. wherever he found them a hindrance. It took him a few minutes to realize he'd been shouting Pepper's name like a drugged lunatic. Nurses and doctors alike tried to approach him, thinking he was more a patient then a distraught lover. Then a voice hit him from somewhere ahead. It called his name, beckoned him over. It wasn't hard to assume that the person was Pepper. And if she was calling him, she was awake. And since she was now screaming at him, she was all right. He raced to her. Behind him the other three Avengers picked up their pace to catch up.

The billionaire scientist wrestled back another privacy curtain to spill himself at the foot of another hospital bed. Pepper was sitting up, propped by aseptic pillows. Her body was covered in a plastic hospital gown and thin white sheet. The dark circles under her eyes displayed a week of illness, but nothing disfiguring beyond that. Her hair seemed intact, symmetrical, lacking the gaping wound Tony imagined would be leaking her brain matter across the hospital floor. The frantic team of surgeons he expected to see elbow-deep in her blood were nowhere to be found. All of his thoughts and visions slammed into a brick wall of her smile.

"Tony, you look like someone robbed you! Are you ok?" Pepper exclaimed at the sight of him.

Tony staggered some. He reached out to catch the end of the bed to prevent him from hitting the floor. "Am I ok?" he repeated in disbelief. _"Am __**I **__ok?"_

Banner came up behind him first. He walked right over, embracing Pepper gently. "Oh, man, we were worried about you. The doctor said you're fine? We all thought you had been shot."

Pepper pulled away from his embrace. "Well, so did I. I just saw that dead man climbing up off the floor—I mean, he was dead! I know he was dead! I think it was too much, I just went down."

"You fainted, you mean?" Banner elaborated.

She nodded. "I came to in the CT scan. They ran it again just to make sure I didn't hit my head to hard."

Tony pulled himself along the bed until he was sitting beside her. He repeated the embrace Banner had given her only theirs lasted longer. Tony didn't care if he broke every single one of her ribs. He wanted to squeeze her so hard into his chest they would become like one being. He would keep her safe there, pressed against him forever.

Pepper let him have his moment, even if it was making the other three uncomfortable. Steve had turned away, his delicate seventy-year-old sensibilities allowing them their private moment without him appearing to pry.

"I'm ok." She whispered into his ear.

He nodded his head against her neck. He knew that, but he needed this just as much as her assurances.

Natasha was a little less shy about breaking up their privacy. She cleared her throat in a very deliberate way. It had the desired affect and both Tony and Pepper pulled out of each other's arms.

"Where's Clint?" Pepper asked, realizing the one person not present.

"Outside." Natasha told her. "You know him, hospitals aren't his thing."

"But, he save my life, like, ten times! Did someone look at him yet? Did they go check on him?"

A crash of guilt washed over Tony's soul. The magnitude of what he had just done to his friend, his best friend, hit him like a baseball bat. Pepper was fine. Clint didn't even know. He was standing out there like an idiot thinking Pepper was dying and Tony made him believe it was his entire fault.

"He won't come in, I've tried." Romanov told her. "We'll pick him up some cold meds on the way home."

"No! No, he's shot! No one looked at his arm?"

Natasha looked at Banner and Tony in curiosity.

"What do you mean?" Banner asked.

But Pepper shook her head desperately. She pushed Tony off the bed with one hand, the other she shoved Banner closer to the curtain door at the end of the bed. "He was shot in the arm! Oh my God, he's probably bleeding to death out there! Someone go get him, I can't believe he didn't say something. Bruce, make sure he's ok—"

Tony was running again, this time back toward the entrance. The shock of pain when he slammed his friend into the wall, then the desperate plea for help that flickered in Clint's eye just before Tony did it again haunted him. The two suffering screams pierced his ears. He drew them out of Clint and would have done worse if Steve hadn't stopped him.

Banner was hot on his heels this time, ignoring the sounds of the same nurses and doctors shouting for them to quit upsetting the other patients. But neither cared. They needed to get to Clint.

Tony was out the doors only a few seconds before Bruce. He went first to the corner of the building, expecting to find Clint curled up on the ground in a heap of frozen human skin. Stepping into the air was like entering the arctic. The weather made a rapid drop, the partial sleet turned to a heavy storm of snow and Clint was nowhere to be seen in it.

"Clint!" Tony shouted.

Bruce went to the opposite side of the entrance, looking to see if Clint had changed sides. But he wasn't there either. Tony went in the opposite direction. There was someone sitting on a bench, but as he got closer it was obvious it wasn't Clint. Banner took the opposite direction, running down along the hospital to check the overhang of a bus stop as he called for Hawkeye.

Around the curb-parked car Tony searched. The night had grown even blacker with the heavy laden clouds of snow obscuring what stars the city lights hadn't divined to choke out of the sky. There were no foot prints to follow. Nothing to go after. If Clint had gone off into the night, cold and alone, sick as a dog and bleeding there was no telling what state they would find him in, if they got to him in time at all.

"The idiot!" Tony growled, slamming a hand against his car trunk. Something caught his eye on his hand; he opened his palm, turning his hand over to look. It was the first time he realized it had been stained red from where he'd grabbed Clint's gunshot wound.

"The stupid idiot! Why couldn't he just say something? Why'd he let me just grab him like that?!" He slammed his fist down again, not caring whether he damaged the half-million dollar car or not.

To the side of him a police officer was exiting a side door of the hospital. He saw Tony standing at the back of the car and came over. At first, Tony thought he hit pay dirt. He assumed the officer was coming to ask him if he knew some black-coated white guy he found dying on the steps of the E.R. Those thoughts were quenched when the man opened his mouth.

"This your car?"

Tony opened his mouth, wanting to say something smart.

"You know you can't park it there? This is an emergency drop-off, not—"

Stark didn't wait for him to finish. He dejectedly moved out from behind the car and climbed into the driver's seat. It seemed the officer was used to guys like him. Instead of getting upset about being cut off, he let the move slip and started off across the dark parking lot to his waiting squad car. From the other side of the hospital, Bruce was returning. He raised his empty hands up in an exasperated shrug. Tony shook his head in response. They would have to start driving to look for him. Clint couldn't get far, not on foot with weather like this.

Tony put the car in gear to reverse off of the curb. He turned in his seat to check and see if the cop was still pulling out behind him before he decided to crash his car into the back of the cruiser and give himself some real problems. The cop was gone, but Tony ended up finding something even better.

He slammed on the breaks and threw the car in park before leaping out of the driver's seat.

"I found him!" he called out to Bruce. "I found him! He's in the back of the car!"

Bruce began to run over as Tony yanked open the back door and leaned into the car on one knee. Clint was lying with his face turned toward the back seat cushion. His body was shivering with fever. Tony touched the arm that was facing up and felt the freezing blood masked by the black coat.

Across from him the other back door was pulled open and Bruce pressed himself inside as well. He felt Clint's pulse first, gauging the strength and speed. Then he gently peeled back an eyelid and moved down to Clint's hands. Tony waited impatiently for what Bruce was going to say.

"Clint?" Bruce said, trying to wake their friend. While his words worked to bring Hawkeye out of unconsciousness, his and Tony's hands worked in tandem to remove the coat from Clint's arm. Tony almost had to laugh when he saw what was under the jacket.

"Always ruining my shirts." He said.

Beneath them, Clint stirred. He groaned, using his bad arm to try and push Banner away. "Ge' off." He grumbled. His voice was harsh, as painful to listen to as it must have been for him to use. "Jus' tryin' ta sleep. No one's lettin' me sleep."

"Clint, you got shot, we're just trying to make sure it isn't serious." Banner told him patiently. He untied the shirt since it was obvious the bleeding wasn't out of control. Beneath he found more of a trenched carved across his bicep then the full gunshot he had expected. "Well, looks like you got it easy this time."

"Wanna sleep." Clint continued to protest hardly above a whisper. "Pep ok?"

"She's fine, and you need stitches." Tony said.

"Then I can go home? Back to _my_ bed?"

Tony looked at Bruce.

"Yeah, sure. We'll kick the late-nighters out for you, how's that sound? Now let's get you up and inside the hospital. I'm not stitching you closed in the car." Bruce shimmied out of the micro-sized rear seats, tugging on Clint's legs as he moved. Clint groaned in protest but allowed himself to be unceremoniously dragged out of the back of the car. Bruce and Tony supported him a little ways to the entrance, just until Clint's brain stopped swimming and pounding the tune to Yankee-Doodle-Dandy. By the time they reached the sliding glass door, Clint was already sternal and supporting himself. He walked through the door, found the first open bed not far from where Natasha and Steve were walking with Pepper in a wheelchair. Clint gave them a two-fingered wave of recognition before flopping onto the cot.

"Is he ok?" Pepper asked in concern as Steve wheeled her closer. Tony turned pale at the sight of seeing her in the chair.

"Hospital policy." Natasha told him, before Tony lost his mind. "Walk in, wheel out. Standard, so stop freaking out."

"He's fine." Banner answered Pepper. "Just need a little bit of putting back together and we'll follow you home."

"You sure?" she asked.

Steve patted her shoulder. "Don't worry Bruce's been putting us back together for a while. It doesn't look bad. I will get Pepper back to the Tower. You coming with us Tony?"

When posed with the option, Tony at first wanted to say yes. He had gone through a fright thinking Pepper was in mortal danger and nothing would satisfy him more than sitting in a room with her germs all to himself for the next year. But guilt gave him pause. He felt awful for the way he accused Clint of bringing harm to her. Abandoning him now when the worst was yet to come felt wrong.

"No, you stay. You take care of him and I'll see you at home." Pepper made the decision for him. She reached back and rapped a knuckle on Captain's chest. "Let's go. I've had a long night and I want nothing more than a hot shower."

"I'm going to go find some nurse and convince her I'm a doctor." Bruce announced, heading off to the nurses' station.

Natasha watched the little group disperse until there were only Tony, the half-conscious Clint, and she left. There was a stool sitting in a corner that she pulled over and perched on. Clint had one eye open as he watched her.

"You are such a trouble maker." She told him. "I never did have a chance to count all those bodies. How many did you get? Ten? Fifteen?"

Clint swallowed. The way his body fought him in the simple gesture made him look like a victim of rabies. He took a second to get enough air in his lungs to speak. At that, Natasha wanted to tell him to stop and save what voice he had left.

"I just wanted to sleep." Clint complained croakily. "Then they showed up, and took Pepper, and I think I shot a few of them. Then there a door and a bed, and we broke a window, and she fell, then we crawled around the roof and there was a panic button . . ." he trailed off, bringing his hand up to gesture in the air a few times before he let it drop tiredly. "I don't know what happened."

Bruce reappeared with a disappointed look one his face. "Well, sorry, Clint but it looks like these guys are a little stingier here then over at New York General. At least there they have your rap sheet and let me treat you without a fight. I know you've got a fear of—"

Clint waved him off. It was obvious the only thing he cared about was getting back home, no matter how it happened. Even his crippling fear of hospitals and needles was not about to stop him now.

"I convinced them to give you something topical for the pain at least." Bruce said.

_Forget the pain._ Clint had to mouth now as his voice decided to quit on him again. _Give me something for my headache and my throat._

"Stop trying to talk." Tony instructed.

_Can't help it. _Clint mouthed back, letting his heavy eyelids fall shut.

Natasha brushed a hand through his hair in a rare display of affection. She encountered the little divots her nails left in the skin of his forehead a few hours prior and felt a little pang of regret. Clint could get himself into a stupid array of trouble when left to his own devices. But who could have anticipated the mass turn out of armed men that stormed the Stark mansion?

As they were in an ER, and it was blatantly obvious to the staff that Clint wasn't in the process of bleeding to death, they had a considerably time to wait before anyone appeared to tend their sick comrade. So the three stood watch as Clint took the moment afforded to him and finally went to sleep.

Until five minutes later when he unceremoniously rolled over and vomited on Tony's dress shoes. After that, Stark figured they were even.

:(:):(:):

"They do try, oh how they do try." Tony Stark said to himself, pushing a wheeled dolly across the floor of his lab. Six empty cylindrical tubes were stationed across from him, each were the permanent housing containers for his Iron Man suits. Emptied during the party and temporarily stored at his house, he was just now getting back to replacing them where they belonged.

"Who, HYDRA?" Banner asked. He was sitting in the seat Clint liked to refer as Stark's pilot's chair. Arrayed in front of him were stacks of computer and television monitors with separate JARVIS controls and switchboards all arranged through hand controls on the chair. He was scrolling through various recorded videos from the separate security system at Tony's mansion. What the angles caught was an epic battle for the ages between a flu-stricken Clint Barton and no less than fifty armed men. They were not the most well organized faction of HYDRA they ever dealt with, and by far they were not the most adept but none of the Avengers would complain about that.

"Yup." Tony said, sliding his Mach 1 version into its proper place.

"Lucky they didn't find your tech." Banner pointed out. "Or this fight would have gone considerably different, don't you think?"

Tony threw a hand at him as if it was the most ridiculous notion he'd ever been presented with. "Those idiots? Did you watch the one guy shoot himself in the foot? I don't think I had much to worry about."

"They took JARVIS down pretty easily."

"I haven't updated his server in a while. Nick Fury could have hacked him. I have since corrected the issue."

"Think they took any information from your system? While they had JARVIS down?"

Tony finished with the Mach 1 suit and moved his flatbed back across the lab to grab the Mach 2. "No, the firewalls would have stopped that. The most they could do was turn him off and on. JARVIS is programmed to wipe the system if he senses an external attack on his mainframe. I still have all my info, therefore he has not been breached."

Banner sat back, seemed to be satisfied with the answer. His eyes drifted over the screens, watching the replay with his heart almost in his throat. He knew the results, he'd watched them before. He knew Clint and Pepper made it out alive but that didn't make it any less perilous to watch their struggle from a distance. When Clint made his hazardous fall from the roof ledge and he clung perilously to the chain of the hanging plant, Bruce flicked the chair's control and turned the screens off. That was simply too much to watch.

"He did a good job." Tony said, setting the Mach 2 in its glass shell.

"Who, Clint?"

Tony pulled the flatbed out from under the suit and faced Banner. "Yeah. I told him to. He forgave me for trying to kill him. After watching those," he indicated the video screens and shook his head. "I wish I was there for them. We almost lost them." For a minute Tony abandoned his work. He was standing next to his drafting table and moved back to lean against it. Banner tended to be the guy he confessed things too when they involved Clint Barton. Otherwise, he'd be speaking to Clint about his issues.

"It was weird not having them at the party. I'd stand there and say something, expecting to turn around and see Clint shooting milk out his nose or throwing paper wads at people from across the room. You know how he just hits whatever he wants no matter how hard a shot."

Banner nodded indicating he understood.

"And Natasha was there all dressed up. I wanted to see Pepper there too. She looks like a babe when she wants to make me crazy. And she wasn't there either. None of them were. My best man and my girl. I had no one."

"Not exactly, you had me, Steve, Natasha, Lt. Rhodes was there too you hardly spoke with him all night."

Tony shook his head. "Yeah it's not the same with us now. He's got this new job at the DOD, he's dating that girl over in accounting down in DC. Clint's got Nat, I've got Pepper, we all live in this crazy Brady Bunch house and I just don't want it to change. Yesterday it could have changed. It could have all fallen apart. We're only people, Bruce, one day we aren't going to be that lucky." Tony picked up a stray piece of metal from his table and fiddled with it in his hands. His mind went back to Coulson and the pain he felt hearing that someone so close to him had died in the line of duty. It was a pain he was not in a hurry to repeat, ever if possible, but given their line of work the likelihood of that was slim. "Clint just gets himself into trouble. One day he's not going to make it out of it again."

"We could just shoot him with some gamma radiation." Banner said off-the-cuff.

Tony snorted a laugh, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'll keep that option as plan B." He sighed again, rubbing a hand subconsciously over his stomach.

Bruce noticed, but at first it didn't really set off any red flags. Until, like a shot to the head it made perfect sense. "Tony," he asked, treading very carefully. "Are you feeling ok?"

Tony gave him a smirk. "Oh come on, I have one introspective moment and suddenly you're all set to wheel me to a loony bin? I have way worse relapses into psychosis that contemplating the deaths of my friends. Just ask anyone who has thrown me in a pool lately."

Banner stepped closer, his head was shaking. "No, I don't mean that. I mean physically. Are you feeling normal? Does anything feel off?"

"My stomach kinda feels like those shrimp cocktails weren't such a hot idea."

The doctor pinched his lips together. A knowing looked passed over his face. It was a look that Tony did not like.

"What?!" he demanded. "Don't you dare tell me I'm getting the flu, because if you are then—then—" He stopped all at once. His hand went from his stomach to his mouth. "I'm gonna kill him." he swore, and then suddenly rushed off to the restroom.

:(:):(:):

"You vomited on my shoes. You licked my couch. WHO THE HELL DOES THAT?" Tony wanted his voice to boom as loud as Thor, but he managed hardly more than a sickening whisper. It inspired none the threatening power he had intended. But at least he was able to make a sound at all.

"Wasn't me." Clint whispered back. "Pepper did it."

"Don't try and blame her!"

Clint kicked out at Tony, Tony kicked back and suddenly it was an all-out battle between the two of them. It was hardly much of a fight. They were both reclining long ways on the same couch in front of the television set. They had given up on the Avengers reruns and moved on to watching the Justice League duke it out with evil beings from Krypton. There wasn't much spared between them. They each had their own blanket and pillows as well as their own end of the couch. But that didn't keep them from foot fighting like nine-year-olds.

"Do I have to send you to your rooms?" Came a warning voice from the kitchen behind them.

A chorus of "no's" was the reply to Bruce's question. Tony and Clint toned down their fighting to occasional jabs to keep under the radar. Tony was only on day one of his full blown illness, Clint had already progressed to day two and the outlook was firm they wouldn't be moving for the next week. An endless supply of DVD's electrolytes, and saltine crackers were left on the table intersparsed between two boxes of Kleenex's. Their used counterparts created a balled-up white carpet on the floor.

Bruce came and sat on what was usually Tony or Steve's chair. It wasn't exactly easy navigating across the space. The lights were out, the windows were covered, and the only semblance of light came from the flickering television set. Neither Tony nor Clint could stand the brightness so they surrounded themselves in the shadows like a pair of vampire bats. He flicked the recliner and sat back to watch whatever the two were currently marathoning. Already they had gone through four superheroes genres in the twenty-four straight hours of their sleepless night. Clint's body, now in full control of its own desires, felt the need to make an insomniac out of him while Tony hadn't had his head out of the puke pot for more than two hours straight.

While Steve's body could handle the barrage of infection, his stomach could not. The first sight of Tony getting sick had Steve's empathy gene firing overtime. Banner would hate to see the guy around a pregnant woman. Pepper was feeling good enough to straighten out whatever was left of the fundraiser and begin to hire a cleaning crew to sort out the mansion. Natasha floated in and out of the room depending on whether Banner felt like a break or not.

"I mean. Honestly. A couch. You just, hauled off and licked it. I can never look at it the same." Tony continued to complain.

Clint smirked. "Come here and I'll cough on your face."

"You come here and I'll punch you in the arm."

The argument was ended before Bruce got a chance to do it himself. The elevator came up to their floor and dinged open to reveal a foreign figure of late. Thor walked in, all smiles and full of booming joy that was decidedly too booming, and too joyful for either sick man. Clint voiced his protest by picking up his sleeve of crackers and hurling them at the Asgardian. Tony went bigger and threw his empty pot.

"My friends!" Thor exclaimed, "What is this state I find you in? Is it not a glorious day?" To emphasize his point, he drew back the curtains, much to the protest of both Clint and Tony. The light filled the living room, banishing the sick pair beneath their pillows and blankets. "I have just received your invitation from Heimdall, and I am prepared to share in the merry-making!"

Bruce laughed like an idiot. "Yeah, that Asgard time is a little off, Thor. You just missed the party."

Thor, thoroughly confused at the strange reaction of Tony and Clint, sought his mind for some explanation. It was obvious they were unwell. More ill then he had ever known of a person, though he had decidedly little experience. Instead he tried to think of ailments he was familiar with and compare them to the men's current state. Most likely his cure would lie in that. Only one particular illness entered his mind. "By the powers of the Nine Realms! Have they been felled by the barsnipes? Shall I retrieve the Elixir of the Seven Sarhorns to ease their ails?"

"Yeah!" Tony told him, desperate for any reason to be given relief from that voice. "Yeah, you do that. Is it a long trip?"

Thor had never been posed that question before. "Why, I suppose it is nearly a ten days journey, more if the Sarhorn Flegnek is to be uncooperative as you know Flegneks can sometimes be."

"Bloody Flegneks." Tony muttered.

"Perfect." Clint said, more than willing to play along for his own health's sake. "Save us, Thor. You and your Flegneks."

The Asgardian pounded a fist against his chest. "For my friends, I will risk all. Do not despair! And when I return, the absence of your eyes and the putrefaction of the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet will not make me feel any repulsion. I leave you now. I hope to return before the boils set." Thor drew down the curtains again and rushed out to the nearest balcony. Thunder clashed, lightning flashed, and he was gone as swiftly as he came.

Clint and Tony escaped the cocoons of their blankets. They both had the same thought coursing through their minds. a thought that Bruce was more than happy to give voice to.

"Thank God you don't have barsnipes!"

The End

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and that's the end!

please review, tell me how you like it:)

country shout-outs, hi Italy! and hello to all those Canadians out there ay?


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